Research teams that include University of Southern Mississippi professors Dr. Daniel Savin and Dr. Joseph Griffitt have received additional grant funding to study the effects of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on the Gulf of Mexico. The Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) recently announced that funding had been approved for 19 grants, which equates to approximately $20 million that will be awarded to researchers over the next three years.

Savin, assistant professor of polymer science and engineering, is lending his expertise to a team that includes Tulane University researchers Scott M. Grayson and Wayne Reed. The team received a little more than $1,000,000 for its project titled “Development of Cost-Efficient and Concentration-Independent Dispersants for Improved Oil Spill Remediation.” Savin and his group of Southern Miss graduate/undergraduate students will receive approximately $322,000 from the grant to conduct research related to the project.

Griffitt, assistant professor in the Department of Coastal Sciences at Southern Miss, is working with a team that includes University of Connecticut professors Christopher Perkins and Thijs Bosker and Purdue University professor Maria S. Sepulveda. The team’s grant-funded project is titled “The Combined Effect of Environmental and Anthropogenic Stressors on Fish Health.” Or, as Griffitt explains, “Looking at how environmental factors (salinity and hypoxia) alter fish response to oil exposure.”